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Candidate for Fitchburg, Monty Tech boards says he was barred by police from entering meeting

By Alana Melanson, amelanson@sentinelandenterprise.com

Updated:
01/28/2014 07:36:55 AM EST

FITCHBURG -- Despite applying for all of the open seats on the Fitchburg School Committee and Montachusett Regional Vocational Technical School Committee, candidate Thomas Ferrazzano missed his chance to be appointed -- and he said it's because he was prevented from entering the meeting by a police officer stationed outside.

Ferrazzano, a retired Fitchburg Public Schools speech therapist who lost his bid for a seat on the Fitchburg School Committee in the November election, said he may not have been appointed to either committee, but he should have had an opportunity to make his case for a seat.

Last Tuesday, when the City Council and School Committee met for a joint convention to make one appointment to the Fitchburg School Committee, left vacant by a resignation, as well as three appointments to the Monty Tech School Committee, Ferrazzano was absent.

When City Clerk Anna Farrell had candidates for the four seats pull numbers to determine the order in which they would present themselves to the joint convention, she pulled numbers for Ferrazzano in the case that he appeared -- but he never did.

According to Ferrazzano, he was about 10 minutes late to the meeting, which started at 6:30 p.m., because he'd taken too long to get ready so that he would look nice when he had to go before councilors and School Committee members, and was wearing a suit and tie.

As there were several cars parked in front of Memorial Middle School, where the meeting was being held, he said he had to park further from the building and rushed toward the entrance.

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Before he could make it to the stairs in front of the school, Ferrazzano said, he was stopped briefly by an officer who was standing outside a parked cruiser. He said the officer asked him where he was going and if he was carrying a weapon.

Ferrazzano said he showed him he was only carrying a notebook and his car keys, and explained that he was a candidate for the school committees and that he needed to attend the meeting inside. He said he also asked the officer to find someone inside who would know who he was, which was denied.

"The officer said, 'You can't go in there. They don't want you in there,'" Ferrazzano said.

He said he got the impression the officer would arrest him if he pushed any further, so he left quietly. The following day, he said he filed a formal complaint with the mayor's office and received a phone call from Deputy Police Chief Phil Kearns later in the day.

Kearns, who identified the officer Ferrazzano interacted with as Officer Mike Yang, said Monday that Ferrazzano was not allowed into the building due to his appearance.

Kearns said Yang told him Ferrazzano's shirt was not buttoned correctly, his pants were either unbuckled or unzipped, and that he was holding his pants up with his hand, "so those things gave the officer some concern about letting Mr. Ferrazzano into a school building like that."

"If he has to hold his pants up with his hand, I don't think I'd want to let him into a school," Kearns said.

He said Yang had asked about a weapon because Ferrazzano was grabbing at his waistband, a common place for a weapon to be concealed.

Ferrazzano said he may have adjusted his pants as he rushed toward the school, because he has recently gained weight, but doesn't believe that should have been reason to keep him from entering the building.

Kearns said Yang had called his supervising sergeant for a second opinion on whether to deny Ferrazzano entry, but Ferrazzano said it did not occur during his brief interaction with the officer.

Ferrazzano is now wondering if the officer was directed by someone to keep him out of the meeting, which Kearns has told him is not the case.

"In this case, there was a school involved -- there may have been kids in the gym," Kearns said. "I don't know exactly what the officer was thinking, but this was not designed to prevent him from participating in the democratic process."

He said police details are not present at all meetings, but that the department will send an officer "if we think there might be a contentious issue."

School Committee member Peter Stephens, who worked in the district at the same time as Ferrazzano for many years, said he had heard a bit about the incident through the grapevine afterward but not directly from police.

He said it is a concern that a citizen would be prevented from entering a public meeting, but he was not outside to see the interaction.

"That was the officer's call to make at that point in time," Stephens said. "He must have felt he didn't look right or something and refused to let him enter the building.

"With all the craziness that goes on throughout the country, he just had to make a decision and he made it," Stephens added. "I'd have to defer to his decision that he made looking at the individual."

Mayor Lisa Wong, chairwoman of the School Committee, said she had heard of an incident between Ferrazzano and police that occurred outside, "but the meeting here had already begun and we proceeded without knowing what was going on in the parking lot."

To her knowledge, she said, no one that she is aware of directed police to keep Ferrazzano out of the meeting. Wong said she would not make a judgment on the incident without knowing all of the details, and that she does not make it a practice to comment on police matters.

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